Fire

  Fire rushed to the girl and held her pale hair away from her face. She rubbed Mila’s back and shoulders, and as she came fully awake, began to understand what she was seeing.

  “Oh, Lady,” Mila said, beginning to cry. “Oh, Lady. What you must think of me.”

  Fire was, indeed, thinking a great many hurried thoughts, and her heart was bursting with compassion. She put an arm around Mila. “I have nothing but sympathy for you. I’m going to help you however I can.”

  Mila’s tears turned to sobs and she wrapped both arms around Fire. She held on to Fire’s hair, speaking raggedly. “I ran out of the herbs.”

  Fire was horrified at this. “You could have asked me for them, or any of the healers.”

  “I could never, Lady. I was too ashamed.”

  “You could have asked Archer!”

  “He is a lord. How could I trouble him?” She was crying so hard she was choking. “Oh, Lady. I’ve ruined my life.”

  And now Fire was furious over Archer’s lack of trouble, for most certainly, all of this had happened at little inconvenience to him. She held the girl tight and rubbed her back and made hushing noises to soothe her. It seemed to comfort Mila to hold on to her hair.

  “There’s something I want you to know,” Fire said, “and you must remember it now more than ever.”

  “Yes, Lady?”

  “You may always ask me for anything.”

  IT WAS IN the coming days that Fire began to feel the lie in her words to Clara. It was true she was not jealous of Clara or Mila for anything they’d done with Archer. But she was not immune to the feeling of jealousy. Though she was brainstorming, plotting, planning with the royal siblings, her outward self focused on the details of the coming gala and the war, inside, in her moments of quiet, Fire was grievously distracted.

  She imagined what it would be like if her own body were a garden of brown soil sheltering a seed. How she would warm that seed if it were hers, and feed it, and how ferociously she would protect it; how ferociously she would love that dot, even after it left her body, and grew away from her, and chose the way it would wield an enormous power.

  When she became nauseated and fatigued, her breasts swollen and sore, she even began to think of herself as pregnant, even though she knew it was impossible. The pain was a joy to her. And then, of course, her bleeding came, and tore her pretending apart, and she knew it had only been the usual symptoms of her prebleeding time. And she found herself crying as bitterly to know she wasn’t pregnant as Mila had cried to know she was.

  And her grief was frightening, because it had its own will. Her grief filled her mind with comforting, terrible ideas.

  In the middle of December planning, Fire made a choice. She hoped she chose right.

  ON THE VERY last day of December, which happened to be Hanna’s sixth birthday, Hanna appeared at Fire’s door, tattered and crying. Her mouth bled, and bleeding knees peeked through holes in both trouser legs.

  Fire sent for a healer. When it was determined that Hanna was not crying over any injury to her body, Fire sent the healer away, knelt before the girl, and hugged her. She deciphered Hanna’s feelings and gasps as best she could. Finally she came to understand what had happened. The others had taunted Hanna about her father, because he was always away. They’d told Hanna that Brigan was forever leaving because he wanted to get away from her. Then they’d told her he wasn’t coming back this time. That was when she’d started hitting them.

  In her gentlest voice and with her arms around the girl, Fire told Hanna over and over that Brigan loved her; that he hated to leave her; that the first thing he always did on his return was go find her; that indeed, she was his favorite topic of conversation, and his greatest happiness. “You wouldn’t lie to me,” Hanna said to Fire, her sobs coming quiet. Which was true; and which was the reason Fire said nothing on the point of Brigan coming home this time. It seemed to her that to assure anyone Brigan was ever coming home was always to risk a lie. He’d been gone now nearly two months, and in the last week, no one had heard a word from him.

  Fire gave Hanna a bath and dressed her in one of her own shirts that made a long-sleeved dress that Hanna found quite funny. She fed Hanna dinner, and then, still sniffling, the girl fell asleep in Fire’s bed. Fire sent word with one of her guards so that no one would be alarmed.

  When Brigan’s consciousness appeared suddenly in her range, she took a moment to calm her own shaking relief. Then she sent him a message in his mind. He came to her rooms immediately, unshaven and smelling of the cold, and Fire had to stop herself from touching him. When she told him what the children had told Hanna, his face closed and he seemed very tired. He sat on the bed, touched Hanna’s hair, leaned down to kiss her forehead. Hanna woke up. She said, “You’re cold, Papa,” crawled into his arms, and fell asleep again.

  Brigan rearranged Hanna in his lap then, and looked over her head at Fire. And Fire was so struck by how much she liked having this gray-eyed prince on her bed with his child that she sat down, hard. Luckily there was a chair behind her.

  “Welkley tells me you’ve not been out of your rooms much this week, Lady,” Brigan said. “I hope you’re not unwell.”

  “I was quite ill,” Fire croaked, and then bit her tongue, because she hadn’t meant to tell him.

  His worry was instant. He opened the feeling of it to her.

  “No,” she said. “Don’t fret, it was a small thing. I’m recovered.” Which was a lie, for her body was sore still and her heart raw as Hanna’s knees. But it was what she hoped would be the truth, eventually.

  He studied her, unconvinced. “I suppose if that’s what you say, I’ll have to believe you. But do you have the care you need?”

  “Yes, of course. I beg you to forget it.”

  He lowered his face to Hanna’s hair. “I’d offer you birthday cake,” he said. “But it looks like we’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”

  THAT NIGHT THE stars were cold and brittle, and the full moon seemed very far away. Fire bundled herself up so that she was twice as wide around as usual.

  On the roof she found Brigan standing contentedly hatless in a draft. She blew warm air into her mittened hands. “Are you immune to winter, then, Lord Prince?”

  He led her to a place protected from the wind by a broad chimney. He encouraged her to lean back against the chimney. When she did, she was surprised, for it was lovely and warm, like leaning against Small. Her guard faded into the background. The tinkling sound of the drawbridge bells whispered over the rumble of the falls. She closed her eyes.

  “Lady Fire,” Brigan’s voice said. “Musa told me about Mila. Would you care to tell me about my sister?”

  Fire’s eyes flashed open. There he was at the railing, his eyes on the city, his breath shooting out like steam. “Hmm,” she said, too astonished to build a proper defense. “And what would you like to know about her?”

  “Whether or not she’s pregnant, of course.”

  “Why should she be pregnant?”

  He turned then to look at her, and their eyes met. Fire had a feeling her unreadable face was not as successfully unreadable as his. “Because outside her work,” he said dryly, “she’s overly fond of a gamble. And she’s thinner, and tonight she ate little, and turned green at the sight of the carrot cake, which I assure you is something I’ve never seen her do once in my life. Either she’s pregnant or she’s dying.” His eyes turned back to the city and his voice went smooth. “And don’t tell me the father of these babies, because then I’d be tempted to harm him, and that would be inconvenient, don’t you think, what with Brocker expected, and all these people about who adore him?”

  If he’d deciphered this much, then there was no point in pretense. She said mildly, “Nor would it set an example for Hanna.”

  “Humph.” He leaned his mouth on his fist. His breath steamed out in every direction. “I take it they don’t know about each other yet? And I take it I’m to keep all of it secret. Is Mila as unhappy as she loo
ks?”

  “Mila is devastated,” Fire said softly.

  “I could kill him for that.”

  “I believe she’s too angry, or too despairing, to think straight. She won’t take his money. So I’m taking it myself, and I’ll hold it for her, and hope she changes her mind.”

  “She may keep her job if she wants it; I won’t force her out of it. We’ll work something out.” He shot her a wry glance. “Don’t tell Garan.” And then, grimly: “Ah, Lady. It’s a mean time to be welcoming babies to the world.”

  Babies, Fire thought to herself. Babies to the world. She sent it out into the air: Welcome to you, babies. And found, with great frustration, that she was crying. It seemed a symptom of her friends’ pregnancies that Fire should not be able to stop crying.

  Brigan was transformed from hard to soft, his hands scrambling through pockets for a handkerchief that wasn’t there. He came to her. “Lady, what is it? Please tell me.”

  “I’ve missed you,” she blubbered, “these past two months.”

  He took her hands. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”

  And then, because he was holding her hands, she told him all of it, quite simply: how desperately she wanted children, and why she’d decided she mustn’t have them, and how out of fear of changing her mind, she’d arranged quietly, with Clara and Musa’s help, to take the medicines that would make it forever impossible. And she hadn’t recovered, not nearly, for her heart was small and shivering, and it seemed that she couldn’t stop crying.

  He listened, quietly, growing more and more amazed; and when she finished he was silent for some time. He considered her mittens with something of a helpless expression. He said, “I was insufferable to you the night we met. I’ve never forgiven myself.”

  It was the last thing Fire had expected him to say. She looked into his eyes, which were pale as the moon.

  “I’m so sorry for your sadness,” he said. “I don’t know what to tell you. You must live where many people are having babies, and adopt them all. We must keep Archer around—he’s quite a useful chap, really, isn’t he?”

  At that she smiled, almost laughed. “You’ve made me feel better. I thank you.”

  He gave her her hands back then, carefully, as if he were afraid they might drop to the roof and shatter. He smiled at her softly.

  “You never used to look at me straight, but now you do,” she said, because she remembered it, and was curious.

  He shrugged. “You weren’t real to me then.”

  She wrinkled her forehead. “What does that mean?”

  “Well, you used to overwhelm me. But now I’ve gotten used to you.”

  She blinked, surprised into silence by her own foolish pleasure at his words; and then laughed at herself for being pleased with the suggestion that she was ordinary.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  THE NEXT MORNING Fire walked to Nash’s office with Musa, Mila, and Neel to meet the royal siblings and Archer.

  The gala was only weeks away and the extent of Fire’s involvement in the assassination plan was a matter of ongoing debate. To Fire’s mind it was simple. She should be the assassin in all three cases because she was far more likely than anyone else to be able to lure each victim to a solitary and unguarded place, and she might also manage to learn a great deal from them before killing them.

  But when she stated her case, Garan argued that Fire was no sword fighter, and if any of the three proved to be strong-minded she would end up on someone’s blade. And Clara did not want the assassin to be a person with no killing experience. “You’ll hesitate,” Clara said today. “When you see what it really means to stick a knife in someone’s chest, you won’t be able to do it.”

  Fire knew herself to be more experienced than anyone in this room save Archer realized. “It’s true I won’t want to do it,” she responded calmly, “but when I have to, I will do it.”

  Archer was fuming darkly in a corner. Fire ignored him, for she knew the futility of appealing to him—especially these days, when his attitude toward her ranged from high dudgeon to shame, because her sympathies and her time were tied up with Mila, and he sensed it, and resented it, and knew it was his own fault.

  “We can’t send a novice to kill three of our most fearsome enemies,” Clara said again.

  For the first time since the topic had been broached, Brigan was present in person to convey his opinion. He leaned a shoulder against the wall, arms crossed. “But it’s obvious she must be involved,” he said. “I don’t think Gentian’ll give her much resistance, and Gunner’s clever, but ultimately he’s led by his father. Murgda may prove difficult, but we’re desperate to learn what she knows—where Mydogg’s hiding his army, in particular—and Lady Fire is the person most qualified for that job. And,” he said, raising his eyebrows to stop Clara’s objections, “the lady knows what she’s capable of. If she says she’ll go through with it, she will.”

  Archer wheeled on Brigan then, snarling, for his mood had found what it was looking for: an outlet that was not Fire. “Shut up, Archer,” Clara said blandly, cutting him off before he even began.

  “It’s too dangerous,” Nash said from his desk, where he sat gazing worriedly at Fire. “You’re the swordsman, Brigan. You should do it.”

  Brigan nodded. “All right, well, what if the lady and I did it together? She to get them to a private place and question them, and I to kill them, and protect her.”

  “Except that I’ll find it much harder to trick them into trusting me if you’re there,” Fire said.

  “What if I hid?”

  Archer had been approaching Brigan slowly from across the room, and now he stood before the prince, barely seeming to breathe. “You’ve no compunctions whatsoever about putting her in danger,” he said. “She’s a tool to you and you’re heartless as a rock.”

  Fire’s temper flared. “Don’t you call him heartless, Archer. He’s the only person here who believes me.”

  “Oh, I believe you can do it,” Archer said, his voice filling the corners of the room like a hiss. “A woman who can stage the suicide of her own father can certainly kill a few Dellians she’s never met.”

  IT WAS AS if time slowed down, and everyone else in the room disappeared. There was only Fire, and Archer before her. Fire gaped at Archer, disbelieving, and then understanding, like coldness that starts in your extremities and seeps to your core, that he truly had just said aloud the words she’d thought she’d heard.

  And Archer gaped back, just as stunned. He slumped, blinking back tears. “Forgive me, Fire. I wish it unsaid.”

  But she thought it through in slow time, and understood that it couldn’t be unsaid. And it was less that he’d exposed the truth, and more the way he’d exposed it. He’d accused her, he who knew all that she felt. He’d taunted her with her own shame.

  “I’m not the only one who’s changed,” she whispered, staring at him. “You’ve changed too. You’ve never been cruel to me before.”

  She turned, still with that sense that time had slowed. She glided out of the room.

  TIME CAUGHT UP with Fire in the frozen gardens of the green house, where it occurred to her after a single shivering minute that she had a compulsive inability to remember her coat. Musa, Mila, and Neel stood quietly around her.

  She sat on a bench under the big tree, great round tears seeping down her cheeks and plopping into her lap. She took the handkerchief Neel offered. She looked into the faces of her guard, one after the other. She was searching their eyes to see if behind the quiet of their minds they were horrified, now that they knew.

  Each of them looked calmly back. She saw that they were not horrified. They met her eyes with respect.

  It struck her that she was very lucky in her life’s people, that they should not mind the company of a monster so unnatural that she’d murdered her only family.

  A thick, wet snow began to fall, and finally the side door of the green house opened. Bundled in a cloak, Brigan’s housekeeper, Tess, marche
d out to her. “I suppose you intend to freeze to death under my nose,” the woman snapped. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Fire looked up without much interest. Tess had soft green eyes, deep as two pools of water, and angry. “I murdered my father,” Fire said, “and pretended it was a suicide.”

  Clearly, Tess was startled. She crossed her arms and made indignant noises, determined, it seemed, to disapprove. And then all at once she softened, like a clump of snow in a thaw that collapses from a roof, and shook her head, bewildered. “That does change things. I suppose the young prince’ll be telling me, ‘I told you so.’ Well, look at you, child—soaked right through. Pretty as a sunset, but no brain in your head. You didn’t get that from your mother. You may as well come inside.”

  Fire was mildly dumbfounded. The little woman pulled her under the cloak and pushed her into the house.

  THE QUEEN’S HOUSE—for Fire reminded herself that this was Roen’s house, not Brigan’s—seemed a good place to soothe an unhappy soul. The rooms were small and cozy, painted soft greens and blues and full of soft furniture, the fireplaces huge, the January fires in them roaring. It was obvious a child lived here, for her school papers and balls and mittens and playthings, and Blotchy’s nondescript chewed-up belongings, had found their way into every corner. It was less obvious Brigan lived here, though there were clues for the discerning observer. The blanket Tess wrapped Fire in looked suspiciously like a saddle blanket.

  Tess sat Fire on a sofa before the fireplace, and her guard in armchairs around their lady. She gave them all cups of hot wine. She sat with them, folding a pile of very small shirts.

  Fire shared the sofa with two monster kittens she’d never seen before. One was crimson and the other copper with crimson markings, and they were sleeping tangled together, so that it was hard to tell which head or tail belonged to which. They reminded Fire of her hair, which was bound now under a scarf that was clammy and cold. She pulled the scarf free and spread it beside her to dry. Her hair slid down, a blaze of light and color. One of the kittens raised its head at the brightness, and yawned.